Angels Cast Shadows Too
by Kyuusaisha Bleeding
Summary: In their last moments, Zabuza and Haku share a memory. Zabuza learns that in the end, there is no one to answer your questions and there is no closure. A lot of hidden irony.


Kyuusaisha Bleeding: Recently, I saw episode 15-19, and I remembered how much I love Zabuza and Haku.

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The drifting snow, like dust from angel's wings, waltzed slowly past the immobile child. The young boy watched it dissolve on the ground in dismay. He raised his hand to catch some of the pure crystals and examined them closely. If he memorized some of the amazing patterns, he would feel better. Each snowflake was a snowflake, but not one was the same as another. And though they were small, each and every one was important to the simple, untainted landscape that Haku enjoyed so much.

He said quietly, "Zabuza san, isn't it wonderful?"

Haku lifted his bright eyes to the sky. The snowflakes nestled in his black eyelashes and ebony hair. His skin tingled as he sensed a subtle whisper in the air, even though there was no wind; it tasted like nostalgia. Absolute silence wrapped itself about the two, a warm blanket against the cold.

Zabuza did not take his eyes off of the small, innocent child before him. The man sighed patiently, and as he expected, his apprentice did not misinterpret it. Haku simply turned and smiled calmly at Zabuza.

"Do we really have to leave here, Zabuza san?" the boy's smile faded slightly.

"Would you rather stay?" the tall, cold-eyed man asked.

"Oh, no. Of course not," Haku said without hesitation. "I shall live only to be a tool to Zabuza san, from now on."

Zabuza was taken aback for a moment. Then he smirked, "Good boy."

He laid a calloused hand on Haku's fragile shoulder. The boy still wore the same threadbare clothing that the Demon had found him in. Zabuza's eyes narrowed, and the strange young murderer simply watched him. The man suddenly pulled a thick cloak from his own pack. The sudden motion sent eddies of snow swirling everywhere.

Haku started when the overlarge cloak was dropped roughly about his shoulders. He looked up at Zabuza, surprised. The demon man looked away, but Haku just smiled.

"Wear this, Haku," was all Zabuza said.

The boy laughed happily, pulling the material close to his small frame, holding it tight as though it were a special friend. As the pure snow continued to fall, the sun emerged from behind a cloudy prison for only a moment, and then the world was stained dark gray once more.

"Zabuza san," Haku said softly, "We must go now. I understand."

Zabuza had already turned away and began to leave, without a backwards glance. Haku trotted obediently after his dear friend. Their shallow footprints were quickly engulfed by more snow…

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This scene passed before his mind's eye slowly, though he was immersed in it for only a split second. It was a dream. Or was that real and this was the dream?

Zabuza lay on the cold bridge now, his reputation shattered. Once a demon…Fate was as cruel, stealing such precious things away from him. Once a proud leaf on a tree, smugly displaying his brightness…but now winter had come and he was the single rusted leaf slouched dead beneath the snow, unseen. He was once many things, but now nothing. He could feel his life and searing crimson anger seeping away from him into the concrete, but no pain. Every part of his body was tired and bruised. His vision clouded and darkened sporadically.

All the time he had spent with the boy seemed as vague as an illusion now. If Haku had believed that the two were friends, he was mistaken. Men are separate beings. No matter what one does, if they share all their memories, if they explain all their emotions, two people will always be separate creatures. They are not connected. No one is; least of all two strangers, a man and a boy. No one will ever truly feel what another is feeling, no matter what. Different souls can never really meet. Just like cities would never meet, even if one built a road between the two and lined it with houses, they stand alone. Zabuza choked back vast and devastating regret.

Regret felt black. A mass of roiling sadness in his chest stabbed deeper than the spears. Many emotions filled his limp body; attempting to express them by screaming or crying would be as futile as trying to empty every ocean with a thimble.

He lay on the cold bridge, his reputation shattered, beside the object of his misery and happiness. However, just glancing at the boy's face was enough to convince him that Haku wasn't an object and Zabuza himself had looked at life all wrong. Haku's thin lips were smiling, even now. Why…why was he smiling? His jet-black hair draped about his round, pale face, pure eyes closed to the corrupted world. Even all the ruby red blood was gone.

Zabuza, with effort, raised a wounded hand to touch Haku's skin for the first time. He ran his fingers gently across the soft features; his body was still warm. Haku felt like the brightest white. While he and the boy were partners, and Haku was full of life, Zabuza had felt his integrity. He thought the boy radiated purity, but now that he touched the warm flesh, he understood that it wasn't just around him; it came from deep inside. Zabuza marveled at the hidden strength that he never would have appreciated before now; now that he was bleeding and broken beside the only boy who had ever loved him.

Zabuza fought to keep his crushing grief inside. His vision blurred again. Haku's was a tragic life; he obediently carried out the orders of one cold man who would not appreciate him until it was too late. Haku never once asked what Zabuza was doing, what his dreams were. He simply wished to make them real in any way possible.

Was Haku destined to be cold for as long as he lived, from the moment he was born in that snowy village? Was Fate so detached from human life that it would force a sacred sakura tree to live in an unkind forest of greedy pine trees? There were too many things to steal away his beauty; and yet perhaps the fact that he was alone made him all the more beautiful. Beautiful enough to be cut down first out of all. And the boy was truly dead…for no one remembered him. However, it would be unfitting for anyone else to come in contact with such a powerful soul, and tarnish it with their reasoning, for memories have no strength. Zabuza choked on the tearful lump in his throat.

So many unanswered questions. If he allowed himself to think about his life, he realized that no true knowledge of important emotions and events that should have happened came to him. Who was Haku; an angel? What were Zabuza's dreams, really? When did Haku manage to change Zabuza's outlook so drastically, without him ever realizing it? Where was he going? Why had he wasted his life? How could he have disregarded Haku for so long?

Zabuza had been trying for much of his long, rueful life to answer an urgent question; what was the one word that would sum up all of his existence? The immense sorrow, growing emptiness, hate, anger, and at the end, melancholy happiness at having realized something very important too late. Just one word.

Godless.

Please, let me go where Haku is…

No longer a Demon, Zabuza Momochi was finally returned to the same humble state he had been in when he came into the world; numb, cold, his life in someone else's hands. There was only one small difference…

He was smiling as the world faded away.

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Someone has not forgotten me.

And I believe you are correct, Zabuza san. Life is strange and mysterious and questionable, and you cannot understand how much you love the sight of your garden until winter arrives and kills the fresh, green life. But, does not all winter eventually end? Do not the blossoms erupt from their buds again?

There is something beyond what we all know.

You are my teacher and my dear friend. You saved me from Death's embrace more than once. Unfortunately, you cannot understand how important you are. You are my guardian angel, I am sure of it. I ask nothing more than to be by your side, so that you might spread even a little warmth on my soul.

You thought you were wrong in the way you lived. You felt corrupt; your eyes that I rarely saw told me so. If only I could tell you now that you need not worry…

Because, Zabuza san…angels cast shadows too…

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I'm sure it's not my best and there isn't much of a plot. Just angsty drabble. I've been writing too much happy stuff lately. Review please.


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